


Only Strangers Watching

by Charientist



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Dissociation, Gen, Implied Time Travel, POV Dissociation, Time Travel Body Dysphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22108186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charientist/pseuds/Charientist
Comments: 23
Kudos: 218
Collections: Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	Only Strangers Watching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_rck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/gifts).



Sasuke Uchiha stared at his own hand wrapped around the handle of the kunai. It was wrong. He didn’t know how or why but it felt wrong.

Practice kunai were made the same shape and weight as live blades. They had to handle the same so that years of practice in the academy wouldn’t make a new genin’s aim worse in the field.

It didn’t make sense. He knew they hadn’t changed since… Well. In the last week.

If it were going to feel wrong, it should feel too small, shouldn’t it? Just a toy for all that it would protect him against his – 

Against that man.

He weighted it again, trying to accept the heft. 

It felt heavy. Large. Like his fingers should be able to wrap farther around. Like he should be able to hold more, lift them easier. It shouldn’t feel too much.

Sasuke took a breath and raised an arm that was just as inexplicably wrong, his reach just off. He sighted the target and tried to think his way through how to adjust for the strange sensations. Then he flicked his arm and wrist in a practiced, perfect motion and

– fumbled. He caught the weapon before it fully left his hand, fingers folding back over the hilt.

His breath pulled tight in his chest as the memories of hundreds of throws flicked through his mind, perfect detail tinted Sharingan-red.

He stepped back, jolting on a leg that was too short and – 

“Sasuke-kun!”

He spun at the warning, automatically locking on the man moving toward him with a dark frown, the kunai flinging from his hand with perfect aim at the slow-moving target.

Iruka-sensei knocked it out of the air with his own weapon.

Sasuke stared. His sensei stared back.

The world was sharp and slow with impossible detail.

“S-sorry, Sensei. I’m sorry,” Sasuke choked out as he gave a stilted half-bow.

He fled.

...

Shikamaru stirred from a light doze at a gentle nudge to his side. He slit his eyes open against the dappled light filtering through the tree above before sliding his gaze to Chouji. Chouji had stopped eating, bento set down in his lap.

Shikamaru jolted up, fully awake, but Chouji gave him an awkward smile and nodded toward the rest of the academy yard.

Shikamaru turned to look and saw the Uchiha watching them with wide eyes. He was afraid.

Shikamaru wasn’t surprised. Sasuke had attacked at the sound of his own name, moving so fast Shikamaru doubted many others saw it. And he’d overheard Iruka saying they should have given him longer, that they shouldn’t expect him to come back the same day and the absence would be excused.

All of that made sense. Shikamaru barely had any details, but he knew the basics and he knew it had unsettled his parents. Konoha had lost so many people and no one had seen it coming.

And Sasuke was at the center of it. Sasuke had lost them all personally.

What didn’t make sense what that he apparently came back to the Academy the same day to talk to them. That he looked afraid of them.

Sasuke hesitated just out of easy talking range, the girls who’d taken to cooing their pity over him hovering farther behind but not nearly enough to be unobtrusive, even by Academy standards.

Shikamaru tilted his head and beaconed the other boy closer before touching the fingertips of both hands together in his lap.

Sasuke took two stilted steps and stopped, looking between Shikamaru and Chouji beside him.

“Where’s Shikako?”

His voice was hoarse and faux-casual, like he was trying to pretend not to care. Or like he expected a bad answer and didn’t want to show it.

Shikamaru stared.

Shikako… that was obviously a Nara name. A Nara head name. One formed in clear counterpoint to his own, though that might not be deliberate.

As the heir and only child of the Clan Head, Shikamaru knew a fair amount of clan history. Most of his clan training was at least less boring than the work at the Academy, since his dad knew lot better what he could handle, even if Shikamaru didn’t always care to put in the effort.

So it was actually significant that he couldn’t think of a single clan head named Shikako.

“Who?”

Sasuke recoiled at the question. “Shi–” He paused and raised one hand, staring down at it as he curled it into a fist.

Shikamaru watched him carefully even as Choji’s brow furrowed in concern beside him.

When Sasuke looked up several seconds later, his expression was almost blank, dazed. “I don’t… I don’t know. Never mind. Sorry to bother you.”

He ran.


End file.
